


In The Right Place At The Right Time

by afteriwake



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you met the right people at the right time in the right place and good things happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Right Place At The Right Time

**Author's Note:**

> For **lunarknightz**. They didn’t say anything about crossovers but they did list three characters I love (and write seldomly, so sorry if they seem off) and thought I’d throw them all into the same story. This is set in an AU SPN, because I stopped watching at 4x10 though I was filled in on what was happening, and mentions a few brief things from the Buffy Season 8 comics, but nothing major.

“So, I thought you looked interesting and I figured I’d buy you a drink.”

Xander looked up at the blonde bartender. “I thought bartenders just served drinks.”

“And sometimes we can give one out on the house to interesting people,” she said, pushing the beer towards him. He glanced at it, and she rolled her eyes. “It’s what you ordered a half hour ago. If you want something else, fine.”

“No! No, this is fine,” he said, throwing his hands up for a second before grabbing the beer. “I just hadn’t planned on having two beers. I have to work tonight.”

“What kind of work?” she asked, leaning forward slightly.

He looked at her, then looked around, then leaned in more. “Hunting.”

“Deer? Bears?” Then she looked in and leaned in more. “Or something more…exotic?”

“Exotic,” he said, his eyes widening. 

“Huh. Don’t get many of _those_ hunters here anymore,” she said with a grin. Then she extended her hand. “The name’s Jo Harvelle.”

He blinked, then took her hand and shook it. “Xander. Xander Harris.” He grinned at her, then scratched the area under his eye patch slightly. “Mind if I turn down the beer and get something else? The person I was supposed to meet isn’t here and I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait.”

“Want a bottle of water or a glass of soda or something instead? Because you just got even more interesting,” she said with a widening smile.

“Glass of Coke would be good,” he said.

“One glass of Coke coming up,” she said, taking the beer out of his hands and passing it down the bar to an older gentleman. “On the house,” she told him with a grin, and got a smile in return. She went to the soda tap and drew up a Coke, and then handed it to him. “Here you go.”

“So…you wouldn’t know a Harvelle whose first name is Ellen, do you?” he asked, taking a sip of the drink.

“Yeah…my mom,” she said slowly.

“She’s my contact.”

“Well, you’re out of luck. She’s gone after something exotic two counties over. It’s big and it just came up this week. Some big anniversary of a fire draws it out. You on a schedule?”

“Kind of, yeah,” he said with a nod.

He dimly heard the door open, and he saw a wicked grin light up her face. “I can help, and I can get you one of the best hunters in the US to help, too.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah. He owes me,” she said, her eyes not leaving the door.

He turned, and saw a young man coming up to them. “Oh, you mean Dean Winchester?”

Jo blinked. “Wait, you know him?”

“Not as well as Buffy, but I’ve hunted with him a few times for my type of v—“ He paused. “Exotic stuff.”

“Well, this just gets better and better,” Dean said as he got to the bar, grin on his face. “Harris. Long time no see.”

“Hey,” Xander said, accepting his clap on the shoulder. “Buffy said if I saw you I was supposed to sock you in the jaw.”

Dean winced. “I left a note.”

“Yeah. We all heard, and then we all heard about it,” Xander said.

“Did she mention the part where I said if she wanted to take some time away from the organization she could meet me in Cali and I’d finish up Sunnyhell for her?”

“That part conspicuously got left out,” Xander said with a laugh.

“There’s still too much bad mojo out there,” Dean said with a shrug, taking the seat next to him. “Hey, Jo, get me a—“

“Yeah, I know,” she grumbled. “Shot of whiskey, no chaser. Jack okay?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“I was about to offer my services for this hunt,” Jo said with a sigh. “Yours too.”

“Yours or mine?” Dean asked Xander.

“Hybrid of both. Strengths of mine, weaknesses of yours. And they’re smart. But there’s only two, and they’re doing a midnight Bonnie and Clyde thing.”

“They turn anyone?” Dean asked, leaning in, dropping his voice to a whisper.

Xander shook his head and waited for Jo to return with Dean’s drink. “One, but when he rose he was hungry, but more depressed than anything else. He’d had a promising future at Yale. Told us how they got him before he begged us to put him out of his misery.”

“Did he really?” Jo asked. “I thought they just got ugly and were all feed and kill.”

“No, we had some smart ones pop right up back in Sunnydale,” Xander said.

Her eyes went wide. “You’re a Sunnydale survivor? Wow. You guys are legend.”

“Try not to be, since we’re branded as terrorists,” Xander said with a shrug. “Usually Faith or Giles would take care of this but they’re both busy.” Then he chuckled. “She really wants to meet up with you again, by the way.”

“Any time or paths cross is good for me,” Dean said with a grin, licking his lips.

“Did you sleep with both women?” Jo said, narrowing her gaze at Dean.

“Buffy? No way. She’s got a hang-up on a couple vamp exes. She makes Sam’s issues look light. That note I left? I was supposed to do some heavy duty training with her and some of her girls before they went back to home base, but Sam got a lead on one of our things so I had to book. But Faith?” He smirked. “Yeah, she and I. But only once, and she kicked me out of bed…in my own room.”

“Go her,” Jo said, amused.

“She owes me a room for a night.” Then the smirk faded and he got the puppy dog eyes. “Jo…”

She sighed. “You know where my spare is. But on one condition.”

“Yeah?” he asked, grinning in triumph.

“I get to go with you tonight,” she said, her hand staying firmly clamped over Dean’s drink.

“Your mom here?” he asked, eyeing the shot.

“Out of town for a while,” she replied, inching the drink back to her, not taking her eyes off of him. “Is Sam here?”

“No,” he replied, inching his hand on the bar towards the drink. “He’s got his own thing he’s taking care of.”

“Good. He’d say no outright.” She firmly pulled the drink away from his grasping hand. “I go tonight, and both of you get a comfortable place to rest, a shower in a _clean_ bathroom, and breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Pancakes?” Dean asked, lifting his head up.

“With real maple syrup,” she said with a triumphant grin of her own.

Dean looked over at Xander, who nodded slowly, then sighed and nodded as well. “Fine. You can go tonight.”

“Yes!” Jo exclaimed, pushing the shot back to Dean, who took it before she changed her mind. “I get off in an hour. Then you tell us everything you know about them,” she said to Xander. “Gotta go, someone else needs me. No ditching me, Dean.”

“Wouldn’t get my pancakes if I did,” he said, turning so he was leaning back against the bar as she left them. “I really wish she didn’t want to be in this life so much. She’s smart enough for something better. I know her mother feels the same way.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll keep her safe.”

“We better, or there will be hell to pay.”

\---

“You know, that hunt was a letdown,” Jo said, grumbling as she dropped her bag in the chair by her door. She stopped, then grabbed it and carried it over to a door that she went through. Xander assumed it was her bedroom. She came back out after just a few seconds.

“Hey, but you got the chick vamp,” Dean said encouragingly from behind Xander, locking the door behind them. He grabbed the bag from the stand by the door and poured salt across the threshold where the three of them had smudged the line. “All on your own, too.”

“Take out the boyfriend and you get a blubbering mess. You just need to strike before the homicidal urges kick in.” She sat down in a chair by the dining room table and pulled off one boot, then another, then picking them up and carrying them into the room. “Make yourself comfortable. We have two couches, so pick one.”

“Dibs on the pull-out,” Dean said.

Jo rolled her eyes. “You get the one in the other room, then,” she replied. “Come on, I’ll show you.” Xander followed her into what turned out to be a living room off the main hall. “Dean just likes the one in the guest bedroom because he can pull it out to sleep on the bed,” she said. “The guy does like his space if he can get it.”

“Thanks for letting us crash here,” he replied.

“Well, there’s food and soda in the fridge. Beer, too, though not the brand you drink. And there’s some whiskey and vodka and I think we have some rum.”

“I’ll just have a beer and a sandwich,” he replied.

“Don’t touch the roast beef. That’s mine.” Then she paused. “Don’t touch the roast beef, Dean!” she yelled towards the other room.

“Wasn’t planning on it!” a reply came back.

She shook her head, but there was a smile on her face. “If he wasn’t so good at what he did I’d let him starve. He saved my ass a few times before.”

“Saved mine once, too.”

“I saved his more, though,” she said with a smirk. “He hates owing me. And owing my mom, though she lets him slide and only calls it in if it’s really important.”

“Why do you hunt?” he asked, stowing his stuff next to the end of the couch. He sat on it and found it was more comfortable than the motel bed he’d slept on the night before.

“It’s in the blood,” she said with a shrug. “My dad was a hunter, my mom’s a mostly retired hunter…” She sat down next to him. “Ever hear of The Roadhouse?”

“Bar that burned down?”

“Bar that exploded because of demons, more like it,” she said sourly. “Dean and Sam got mixed up in some bad stuff, and it fell down on us. Or my mom, I mean. I’d left home by that point. The Winchesters brought bad stuff on me later, but that’s a whole other story.” She waved her hand. “Anyway, I grew up around there, listening to all the hunters. It always sounded cool.”

“It’s not, not really,” he said, leaning back against the couch and looking at her.

“Don’t tell Dean, but this is probably my last hunt,” she said with a shrug. “My mom’s looking to only do the really important hunts and be more of an information broker, you know? And I think I’ll be doing the same thing. It’s boring, but I’m good at it. Better than at hunting.”

“You know any magic?”

She shook her head. “I’m learning Latin at the nearest university, which is even more boring, but it’s practical. I’m a college student there. Studying history, with an emphasis on world mythology.” She grinned. “I commute there. Hour drive both ways, and I have to get up super early for a good parking spot, but it’s making my mom happy. Plus I found a hunter contact there so I’m helping out with the research in that county, too.”

“I think it’s probably the best way to survive.”

“I think so, too. Now that one apocalypse is behind us, we just need to wait and see what 2012 brings,” she said with a smile.

“Dean doesn’t talk about it much,” Xander noted.

“He wouldn’t. Thanks to some stuff that confuses me him and his brother got out of being meat suits, like he calls it. Heaven and Hell is dealt with and God’s back in his rightful place, I guess.” She shrugged. “I died, then got brought back completely fine, like nothing had happened. It was part of a deal that Dean made. After that, this lifestyle lost a lot of its luster. Now it’s kind of a thing I do when I’m bored. Don’t get me wrong, I keep training so I don’t put anyone else in danger, but I don’t live the life, not like Dean and Sam. Not like my dad did. I’m background personnel now.”

“That’s good.”

“I have a question, and it’s been bugging me all night. How did you lose your eye?”

“A fight with a priest,” he said with a slight grin. “Sounds real simple, but when the priest is trying to bring about the end of the world…”

“You have to tell me the story,” she said, leaning back against the arm of the couch.

“Well…”

\---

When Dean finally emerged from the room a few hours later, due to his habit of not sleeping much, he wasn’t surprised to see Xander and Jo still up and talking. There were a couple bottles of beer and half a sandwich on the coffee table in front of the couch, and he relaxed. He worried about Jo, after everything. Worried she still might have a thing for him, want to join that life. But from what he’d heard from before he went to sleep and now, the conversation having turned to embarrassing moments from childhood, he held hope she’d get farther and farther away from this life until she left it behind for good. Satisfied, he headed back to the kitchen when his phone rang. “Hey,” he said, picking it up. “I got told you want to see me?”

A throaty chuckle could be heard on the other side. “I’ll be in New York City in two days going after an incubus. I need bait. Thought of you from the get-go.”

“Well, it just so happens I’m in Jersey City right now,” he replied. “You get me a room, I’ll be your bait.”

“I got a posh place lined up, and I’ll even let you raid the mini bar,” she replied. “That’s what all the victims were doing when they got killed, at any rate.”

“It’ll be good to work with you again, Faith,” he replied.

“Be even more fun to play. I’ll call you tomorrow, tell you where to meet me. Later.” She hung up and he stared at his phone, grinning. It would be good to see her again, so long as he didn’t get kicked out of a hotel room again…


End file.
